Part 4 (1/2)
The sudden splas.h.i.+ng of the water had caught many eyes on the deck of the _Huntress_, and people admired the ”playfulness” of the pretty child in the little boat. One pair of eyes, however, was sharper than the rest.
”Just look at that child, Isabel!” said a tall, bronzed gentleman who was leaning over the taff-rail. ”She is a perfect little fury!
I never saw a pair of eyes flash so. Very fine eyes they are, too.
A very beautiful child. Isabel! why, my dear, what is the matter?
You are ill--faint! let me--”
But the lady at his side pushed his arm away, and leaned forward, her eyes fixed upon Star's face.
”George,” she said, in a low, trembling voice, ”I want to know who that child is. I _must_ know, George! Find out for me, dear, please!”
As she spoke, she made a sign towards the boat, so earnest, so imperative, that it caught Star's wandering gaze. Their eyes met, and the little child in the pink calico frock, and the stately lady in the India shawl, gazed at each other as if they saw nothing else in the world. The gentleman looked from one to the other in amazement.
”Isabel!” he whispered, ”the child looks like you. What can this mean?”
But little Star, in the old black boat, cried, ”Take me away, Bob!
take me home to my Daddy Captain! _Quick_! do you hear?”
”Jes' so” said Bob Peet. ”Nat'rally!”
CHAPTER IV. -- THE VISIT
A gray day! soft gray sky, like the breast of a dove; sheeny gray sea, with gleams of steel running across; trailing skirts of mist shutting off the mainland, leaving Light Island alone with the ocean; the white tower gleaming spectral among the folding mists; the dark pine-tree pointing a sombre finger to heaven; the wet, black rocks, from which the tide had gone down, huddling together in fantastic groups as if to hide their nakedness.
On the little beach two men were slowly pacing up and down, up and down, one silent, the other talking earnestly. Old men, both, with white, reverend hair: one slender and small, the other a son of Anak, big and brawny,--Captain January and the minister.
It was the minister who had been speaking. But now he had done, and they took a few turns in silence before the Captain spoke in reply.
”Minister,” he said,--and his voice was strangely altered from the gruff, hearty tone which had greeted his guest fifteen minutes before.
”Minister, I ain't a man that's used to hearin' much talk, and it confuses my mind a bit. There's things inside my head that seems to go round and round, sometimes, and put me out. Now, if it isn't askin'
too much, I'll git you to go over them p'ints again. Slow, like! slow, Minister, bearin' in mind that I'm a slow man, and not used to it.
This--this lady, she come to your house yisterday, as ever was?”
”Yesterday,” a.s.sented the minister; and his voice had a tender, almost compa.s.sionate tone, as if he were speaking to a child.
”And a fine day it were!” said Captain January. ”Wind steady, sou'west by sou'. Fog in the mornin', and Bob Peet run the _Huntress_ aground on the bank. I never liked fog, Minister! 'Give me a gale,' I'd say, 'or anythin' short of a cyclone,' I'd say, 'but don't give me fog!'
and see now, how it's come about! But it lifted, soon as the harm were done. It lifted, and as fine a day as ever you see.”
The minister looked at him in some alarm, but the old man's keen blue eyes were clear and intelligent, and met his gaze openly.
”You're thinkin' I'm crazy, minister, or maybe drunk,” he said, quietly; ”but I ain't neither one. I'm on'y takin' it by and large.
When a man has been fifteen year on a desert island, ye see, he learns to take things by and large. But I never see good come of a fog yet.
Amen! so be it! And so Cap'n Nazro brought the lady to your house, Minister?”
”Captain Nazro came with her,” said the minister, ”and also her husband, Mr. Morton, and Robert Peet, the pilot. Mrs. Morton had seen little Star in Peet's boat, and was greatly and painfully struck by the child's likeness to a beloved sister of hers, who had, it was supposed, perished at sea, with her husband and infant child, some ten years ago.”
”Ten year ago,” repeated Captain January, pa.s.sing his hand across his weather-beaten face, which looked older, somehow, than it was wont to do. ”Ten year ago this September. 'He holdeth the waters in the hollow of His hand.' Go on, Minister. The lady thought my little Star, as the Lord dropped out of the hollow of His hand into my arms ten year ago, had a look of her sister.”
”She was so strongly impressed by it,” the minister continued, quietly, ”that, failing to attract Peet's attention as he rowed away, she sent for the captain, and begged him to give her all the information he could about the child. What she heard moved her so deeply that she became convinced of the child's ident.i.ty with her sister's lost infant. As soon as Peet returned after putting Star ash.o.r.e, she questioned him even more closely. He, good fellow, refused to commit himself to anything which he fancied you might not like, but he told her of my having performed the last rites over the mortal remains of the child's parents, and Mr. Morton wisely counselled her to go at once to me, instead of coming here, as she at first wished to do. After my interview with her, I am bound to say--”